Yarn Traveler

Somehow the rest of our little road trip sped up and got away from me. Next thing I knew we were home and I was way behind posting…

After a brief stop for lunch and yarn in Sacramento, we headed to San Francisco for the night. We seem to end up in San Francisco a lot, and we’ve already done most of the usual touristy things around town, although we’ve visted very few yarn stores. Last time we were there, I went to Artfibers for the first time.

Artfibers is different in that they make all of the yarn that they sell in their shop; the colors are lush and luminous, the yarns are textured and interesting. They even have a small lounge area where they encourage you to try out any of the yarns that catch your fancy. They call it yarntasting. You’ll have to excuse my less than stellar photography skills, but no matter how I tried I couldn’t capture the deep, rich colors and the textures. Top left: Golden Chai (color #101) 100% Golden Tussah Silk. Middle right: Shizen (color #12) 75% Silk / 25% Super Kid Mohair. Bottom left: Sherlock (color #10) 70% Extrafine Merino Wool / 30% Silk. Artfibers, while always worth a visit, is a little hard on the pocket book, so I checked out Imagiknit this trip.

I really liked the Imagiknit store with its two very large rooms, fun and friendly staff, and variety of yarn brands. Its a comfortable jumble of knitted samples, books, and kits. I picked up two skeins of Koigu KPM in a lovely dark chocolatey brown colorway to make some socks for Matt. I would have liked to sit and knit for a while, but Santa Barbara was calling…

Artfibers
124 Sutter St.
San Francisco, CA 94104

Imagiknit
3897 18th St.
San Francisco, CA 94114

Filed under: Yarn Store Reviews, California Stores on July 29th, 2007